Croatian Was Europe’s Lingua Franca—Why Has This Been Erased?

 

Croatian was taught at Oxford and the Sorbonne in the 16th century – Why is it being hidden?

 

A New Chapter in Croatian History: The Academy of the Illyrian Language Founded in Rome in 1599

 

A Dominican Priest’s Sensational Discovery—and the Media’s Silence. A few years ago, I listened to Fra Hrvoje speak at NSBiH. Now, we see the results of his research. This will be a long post, but it concerns a topic of vital importance for every truth-seeker, for everyone who wants to understand who we are—from the outside in.

 

On the evening of November 14, 2025, the central news program of RTL Television aired a report—quietly, almost unassumingly—about a discovery so extraordinary that even the Croatian media, usually prone to hyperbole, used the word sensational with full justification. Professor Dr. Stjepan Krasić, a Dominican priest and scholar from Bosnia and Herzegovina, had unearthed documents in the Vatican Archives that rewrite the story of the Croatian language and, with it, Croatian history.

Professor Krasić is a man who spent forty years in Rome: four as a student, thirty-six as a university professor. In his rare moments of leisure, he combed the Vatican’s archives and libraries, searching for traces of Croatia’s past. His decades of meticulous research have now revealed an unknown chapter: in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Croatian language—often referred to as Illyrian—was a mandatory subject at Europe’s most prestigious universities.

Facing the Reformation, the Catholic Church sought a language to bridge communication with the Slavic peoples. In 1599, Pope Clement VIII tasked the Jesuit order with identifying the most suitable tongue. After consulting leading linguists, including the Slovak Teofil Kristek, the Church chose Croatian. Kristek’s letter from that year is effusive in its praise: “He enthusiastically recommended Croatian, emphasizing its beauty, prevalence, and historical significance.” The decision was nothing short of revolutionary. A language spoken by a small nation—one without a state or central cultural institution—was selected to serve as the lingua franca for the Slavic world. That same year, the Academy of the Illyrian Language was founded at the Roman College.

Four centuries later, an erudite, a mind untainted by the scourges of modern times, reads and researches for forty years, and in the twilight of his life comes across something that should shake the Croatian public. But, alas, the most Croats don’t care that in the 16th century the Croatian language was taught at Oxford, Bologna, the Sorbonne, Salamanca, and Paris. Instead, they are captivated by spectacle: the infighting of extremists, the shouting of nationalists, the antics of reality TV stars. The Vatican archives, with their sealed historical truths, gather dust while the education system teaches children that Croatians are “European grooms,” a small nation with an inferiority complex, forever in the shadow of Hungarians, Germans, and Italians.

They teach our children English and German as soon as they can speak, there’s a Helen Doron English school full of two-year-olds who can’t pronounce mama, but it’s important that they know how to say MUM! Poor people, poor people with such complexes, who travel to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, but don’t see the magnificent palace in the heart of Split. Poor man who travels to the Dolomites to post a picture on Instagram because the Dolomites are now in, but doesn’t see Velebit, Čvrsnica and Durmitor. Poor man who travels to admire the Rhine River, but hasn’t washed himself at the source of the Cetina, or dipped his feet in the cold Neretva. Complexes, everything that can be said about the Croatian people fits into one concept – the inferiority complex.

For this state of society, apart from the man himself, the Croatian media space is to blame, which shapes our reality to a large extent. In order not to write an essay about the Croatian media and journalism, which I despise from the bottom of my soul, I will just present you with a few pieces of evidence. So, an article about the Croatian language as an internationally recognized language in the 16th and 17th centuries was published on November 10, 2025 in the journal of the University of Split ST-OPEN. This journal, according to the founders, is: ‘’Our vision: For researchers, with researchers. Our mission: To provide an educational publishing platform for researchers at the beginning of their careers. ST-OPEN is an international, peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal that focuses on promoting research by young researchers from various research disciplines.‘’

Let’s just digress briefly, Prof. Stjepan Krasić is certainly not a novice researcher, and the research that may be the crowning achievement of his life is published in a journal for novice researchers. Maybe that’s what the professor himself wanted, but let’s put our finger on it.

When the news broke on the evening broadcast, I scoured the internet in disbelief. As of nine o’clock the following morning, November 14, only Večernji list had covered the story. Jutarnji list, Slobodna Dalmacija, Indeks—nothing. Not a word from the portals that Croatians read like scripture each morning. No minister has commented. No public figure has spoken. Professor Krasić concluded his interview with two crucial statements: first, that this knowledge must be transformed into information, and that Croatian linguists must urgently push for these facts to be included in school textbooks; second, that the Croatian people have a right to know their history.

I will end here, with a digression: if you do not dig, search, question, and doubt, no one will hand you the truth. As this case shows, the Croatian government, education system, and media work in concert to erase history, dumb down the public, and silence honest researchers like Domagoj Nikolić and Natalija Princi.

Imagine what else remains hidden. How much has been published, only to vanish without a trace, unable to break through the media blockade? This discovery could not be suppressed because Professor Krasić is a respected figure within the Church. But consider Domagoj Nikolić, whose extensive work goes unnoticed. He calls himself “shadow banned”—erased from public debate, his theses neither examined nor refuted. We live in an age of information overload, yet starve for truth. If you want your children to think for themselves, teach them that school is a requirement, but true education lies in free inquiry and independent reasoning.

 

P.S. Of course, this discovery opens up many questions that need to be answered in light of new facts. And that is: Why the occupiers studied the language of the people whose land they occupied? Despite the fact that the Croatian language was taught at prestigious universities across Europe, why it was banned in the home country, and the official language was Latin? And numerous attempts at Germanization, Magyarization, etc.? But since I am just a little professor of the Croatian language who washes clothes in a laundry, in the eyes of the powerful, it is not my job to dissect and analyze history.

 

P.P.S. I have just reviewed HRT’s news coverage in detail. Not a single word. If you ever doubted that the powers in Brussels and their local allies might be working against their own people, let all doubt be dispelled.

 

Guest author

Source (Hrvatski/Croatian)

You can read more about this sensational news here. (Hrvatski/Croatian)

Video of a short interview with Father Stjepan Krasić OP. (Hrvatski/Croatian)